Our Culture

Corby’s growth and success are made possible by the passionate commitment of our employees. We hire exceptional people and strive to build an environment where they can be their best – and pour joy and meaning into our products, our workplace and our world.

Talent Management

In our drive to raise the bar on performance, we began rolling out a new performance management system that takes us away from once-a-year dialogues and toward quarterly objective setting and monthly huddles. This approach has been shown to improve role clarity and accountability, and encourage more frequent conversations between employees and their managers where they can give and get more feedback and course-correct if needed. Because it’s so radically different from what we’ve used in the past, training was conducted across the country, with customized sessions for people managers and individual contributors.

We also launched the “musical chair project” to help build future leaders and strengthen our talent pipeline. Select director-level employees were seconded to stretch roles with national responsibilities, giving them an opportunity to take on greater challenges and learn new things. Originally intended to last one year, the experience proved to be invaluable and will be extended for a second year to enable the participants to consolidate their learnings.

Diversity and Inclusion

Our many different backgrounds, viewpoints, skills and talents contribute to creativity, boldness and the growth of our business.

Over the past three years, we’ve sought to promote diversity of thought and better decisions throughout the organization by meaningfully improving the gender diversity of our teams and creating more open-mindedness in our DNA. While there’s been movement at all levels of the organization, we were especially pleased to make progress on gender diversity in our executive ranks. As of July 1, 2018, three of the seven members of our executive team are women.

Our internal Balance & Inclusiveness Committee, composed of employees from every office from coast to coast, is dedicated to raising awareness and starting conversations about diversity. In fiscal 2019, the committee surveyed employees to get baseline views of the demographics of our workforce and the inclusiveness of our culture, which will enable us to set and work toward improvement targets. Approximately 77% of our people completed the survey, giving us a very good sense of where we stand.

In February 2019, we hosted a Catalyst Canada supporter roundtable for corporate executives, HR leaders, diversity and inclusion practitioners, and other champions of inclusion. Participants in the roundtable, entitled “What Does Inclusion Mean?”, discussed how to make inclusion visible, how to interrupt exclusionary behaviours, and how to manage the coexistence of inclusion and exclusion.

Corby employees proudly wearing pink to support the International Day of Pink – celebrating diversity and inclusion while raising awareness to stop homophobia, transphobia and all forms of bullying.

Health and Wellness

One of the pillars of our new Sustainability and Responsibility program is Valuing People, which applies both to our own employees and to external stakeholders, like bartenders and suppliers, with whom we regularly interact.

As part of this commitment, we partnered with GenWell, a Canadian non-profit whose mission is to make the world a happier and healthier place by reminding people about the importance of face-to-face social connection. Across all of our locations, we held GenWell Convivial Lunches with our employees, which provide a phone-free opportunity for them to gather together, share a nice lunch and cocktail, and play games that spark great conversations.

Corby’s partnership with GenWell reminds us of the importance of face-to-face social connections – and gives our employees time and space to gather together.